Is stress necessarily bad?

“Stress is the Spice of Life; the absence of stress is death” – Hans Selye.

All of us, I guess, time to time get into the stressful situations: at work, at home or on the street and not all of them caused by negative stressors. But the normal reaction of our organism on this physical or mental impacts we call stress. So is stress necessarily bad or we can identify the good stress too.

Good stress vs bad stress

Lets see. When you marry, start new job, travel far, buy the house, have a child and etc, do you feel stress? I think – YES. But, can you say that this stress is bad and make you sick? Probably NO, because you have positive stressors. So this type of stress is called eustress or positive stress. It can mobilize you for some action or making important decision and do not have harmful effects on human health.

Together with that we have another type of stress, which is caused by negative stressors. This bad stress is called disstress. Important to say that not just external situations can be reason of distress, but internal feelings, thought too. For example, the illness of native person, lack of sleep, unemployment, etc. It can be dangerous and even lead to serious diseases, because immune system becomes weak. Person more often exposed to different infections, because the production of immune cells decrease during the period of physical or mental stress.

What are the difference between eustress and distress

So the difference between eustress and distress is in source of stress (positive or negative) and its duration. Because even positive stress can trigger harmful effects on human health. Necessary to use eustress like a method то mobilize internal potential for getting the best results.

Consequently, answering a question: “Is stress necessarily bad?”, , we can say NO, but very importantly understand the difference between eustress and distress, as good stress vs bad stress. Besides avoid any! long term stress to prevent harmful effects on human health. And first of all enjoy the life!